Five Books Worth Reading and Time Investment Based on Genre

Reading is one of my favorite pastimes. It calms me, it takes me to far away lands, and events I will never experience in real life. So far I’ve read 11 8 books this year, but here are five books worth reading and worthy of the investment in time. Goodreads accidentally counted 3 of my books twice.

Books Worth Reading

These books are not in any particular order. They were are 5-star ratings for me!

Science Fiction

The Passage – by Justin Cronin
I admit, this is a very long book, but well worth the time. This book combines the post-apocalyptic with supernatural (vampires). It’s an intense novel that is part of a trilogy. This particular book is said to be coming to the big screen, but in all honestly I’m not sure if they can do it any justice. There are so many details and characters in this book that I cannot see how well the development of this story would work.

Story Synopsis: The government is conduction a secret project that involves infusing 12 death-row inmates with a virus to try to breed a new type of soldier. One that will be able to survive any war. However, when there is a security breach, they end up unleashing indestructible, blood-sucking Virals into the world. The book then jumps ahead 90 years later to a small community of men, women, and children who have been living in a walled compound and their fight to stay alive and find a cure.

Mystery / Thriller

In The Dark – by Chris Patchell
After reading The Passage, I needed a break from the heaviness of that storyline. Although, I’m not sure how much of a break it really was since this book had it’s own intense moments. This is the first book in a series titled “The Holt Foundation Story”.

The characters in this story are well-developed with a detailed plot scenes. It makes it easy to form attachments to the characters. If you like nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat plots then this is the one for you!

Story Synopsis: Marissa Rooney’s insulin-dependent daughter disappears after I night out with her roommate, without her insulin. No one has seen, or heard from her in days. Her mom knows there is something very wrong. It’s a race to find her before she goes into insulin shock.

As it turns out, there is another girl who disappeared four weeks earlier. Is this a serial kidnapper? Someone from the past with a vendetta?

Even though it becomes pretty clear who the kidnapper is, this doesn’t take away from the plot as you continue to learn the WHY behind it!

Mystery / Thriller / Christian

Traces of Guilt – by Dee Henderson

This book is part of a two book series called the “Evie Blackwell Cold Case”. This book was quite the page-turner for me. The mystery angle to the story kept me on the edge of me seat!

Story Synopsis: Evie Blackwell is helping to launch a new task force dedicated to reexamining unsolved crimes across the state of Illinois. Her first assignment is in Carin, Illinois, where she is using her vacation time to start on two cold cases. Gabriel Thane is Sheriff of Carin County and works with Evie on the cold cases that have rocked their community.

Evie works closely with local sheriff Gabriel Thane in trying to solve the cold cases. The two quickly fall into a good working relationship, there are also some clear hints of attraction from the beginning. However, this book is definitely more about the mysteries and the relationships between Evie, Gabriel, and their closest family and friend rather than simply an Evie-Gabriel story. And it works.

For future books in this series, I look forward to seeing Evie and Gabriel’s story unfolding as a larger story arc.

Historical Fiction

Girl in the Blue Coat – by Monica Hesse

Since reading Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, I have become a huge historical fiction fan. There is something to reading with being set in a specific period of time with truth mixed in with the fictional story. As a child, history was not my favorite subject, but I thoroughly enjoy learning history now.

Story Synopsis: This story is based in Amsterdam in 1943 during the German invasion of the Dutch in WWII. At 18, Hanneke Bakker trades goods on Amsterdam’s thriving black market to help support herself and her parents. This war has made the unconventional normal. Henneke trade’s things on the Black Market to support her family. Her illegal work keeps her family afloat, and Hanneke also likes to think of it as a small act of rebellion against the Nazis.

However, on one of her regular deliveries, a client frantically pleas with her to find a Jewish teenager she was hiding. Hanneke initially wants nothing to do with such a dangerous task but is ultimately drawn into a web of mysteries and stunning revelations—where the only way out is through.

This is a story of loss, bravery, betrayal, and love in impossible times.

Contemporary Fiction

Leaving Time – by Jodi Picoult

Do you like elephants? If you do, there are some super cool elephant facts in this book! Truly, they are amazing beasts. They grieve, have mothering skills, and have fascinating herd behavior. I really enjoyed the telling of the story, along with the mixture of non-fictional information. The character development was extremely well done.

Story Synopsis: Jenna Metcalf is now 13 years old. Jenna’s mom (Alice) mysteriously disappeared when she was 3 years old. Her dad is in an insane asylum. Both of parents were scientists dedicated to studying elephants. Jenna has been obsessed with finding her missing mom now for a decade, searching online and rereading old science journals of her parents. Now she enlists two people to help her find her mom, a psychic for missing people who doubts her gift, and the PI who originally investigated this case when Alice disappeared.

This book truly keeps you guessing until the end on how the story would end. Great book!

Current Reading

Hide (Detective D.D. Warren #2) – by Lisa Gardner (Mystery Thriller)

So far, this book is very engrossing. It begins with Bobbie Dodge, former Boston police sniper, now Massachusetts State Police Detective, receiving a call from his old pal and ex-girlfriend, Sergeant D.D. Warren of Boston P.D. requesting his assistance on a case. An underground hideaway has been uncovered on the grounds of the abandoned Mattapan State Hospital for the mentally ill, and it contains six mummified corpses. Page turner? Oh, yes!

Salt to the Sea – by Ruta Sepetys (Historical Fiction)

I have not gotten too far on this one since I am somewhat riveted to the Hide story. However, as mentioned earlier, Ruta Sepetys is the other of another book I read called Shades of Gray. I will tell you an interesting fact about this book though, it actually involves the cousin of the main character in Shades of Gray!

Salt of the Sea is another book set in WWII. However, this one is focused on the refugees fleeing East Prussia as the war is drawing to a close by seeking freedom on the ship that promises salvation, the “Wilhelm Gustloff.”. It intertwines the lives of three teenage refugees from different backgrounds and a teen in Hitler’s army. This story is told by alternate different points of view from characters in the story. I can’t wait to dive more into this story!

Your turn! Share some books that you are currently reading, or have read in the past!